


Sentimental Gears

by PSIDontKnow



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Make me stop making AUs, Super mystery person at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 15:58:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10390416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PSIDontKnow/pseuds/PSIDontKnow
Summary: It had begun with a boy finding a friend, hidden inside a family clock.It ends with yet another clock and the death of the boy





	

**Author's Note:**

> An AU Based on [ Zoozbuh's cover of Cruel Clocks ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj6CJ9FehAM)

It's strange, how after all these years, blood is the first thing he can smell, really smell without it seeming muted. It makes sense though, he'd awoken to the sight of it, it figures he'd die to the smell of it. The automaton's gears whirr softly as he pulls his blade out of the last druid that had been blocking the clock. Violet eyes pay no mind to the bodies thrown carelessly down the steps, slaughtered on them, the spray of blood across his face, some already dried and sticking his clothes to false flesh. His attention is instead on the crumbling clock that had always been the center of town, his boots crunching over gears that are falling apart and rusting even though they'd been fine the week before.  
A lot of things had been fine the week before.  
A pale hand reaches out to the key hole that opens the great doors in the back, the ruby and obsidian rings on his fingers glinting in a way the key in his hands does not. It's achingly familiar, enough that he falters in turning the key for a moment, swearing that a tanned hand should be there instead.  
_'There's something here, I can feel it.'_  
He takes a deep breath, one his false body does not need, and lets the memories wash over him as he opens the doors.

* * *

_"How long have you been inside that clock?"_  
_"I don't .... I can't remember."_  
_"Well. don't worry, you can stay with me."_

* * *

Keith's hand is slack, Shiro's hand gentle around his wrist as the taller man leads him through the square. They'd known each other for years, ever since a round faced preteen Shiro had found him, but there was one place they'd never gone together.  
"I think I've figured it out this time." There's a giddiness in his voice that had been absent for years. It's apparent in his smile as he leads Keith up the winding stairs of the clocktower. The clocktower was as old as the town proper, the true symbol of the entire city. Shiro had, once, been one of the people to tend to it, to keep it from running down. Keith held a strange feeling towards it, remembering the fact that it had once betrayed the man who loved it, the bones of Shiro's right arm grinded between the gears.  
He doesn't dwell on it or Shiro's empty sleeve, just simply follows him up the stairs, expecting the other to turn left once they got to the top, the same way he'd gone for maitenence, the same way Keith had come to collect him before. Instead, he stops in front of doors that had long been declared decorative, hand releasing Keith's wrist to dig through his pocket.  
"The silver key is what I used to wind you up, but the black key had opened the clock that held you inside." Shiro pulls out the black key, showing it to Keith before slotting it into the door's minuscule key hole, far too tiny for a door that's two men tall.  
"That clock has been passed down through my entire family, and when I found you inside, it was the beginning of something bigger." Shiro seems to practically glow as he turns the key, the lock tumbling and clicking before many more clicks sound, a domino effect from just that one tiny lock. Keith stares as Shiro shoulders open the great doors, walking inside behind the grinning man. It's a grand atrium inside, gears and inner workings of the great clock visible through the domed glass walls. Everything hums and moves in sync, and Keith feels a warmth in his chest, something like home.  
"The clock parts that the engineers do the upkeep on is only the outerworkings, but this is the real heart of it. It's amazing how it's never needed maitenence, almost as if it's self sustaining." His words fade into the background for Keith as Shiro leads him to the otherside of the room, a large silver door with delicate scrollwork the only interuption in the glass walls. There's a memory surfacing here, another face layering over Shiro's smiling one, Keith's hand already reaching for the silver key on a tie around his neck.  
He doesn't get the chance to pull it from under his shirt before everything hits the fan.

* * *

_"I'm Shiro, what's your name?"_  
_"....Keith."_  
_"Well then Keith, I think you should keep your own key."_  
_"Why though?"_  
_"Because you deserve to have control over your own life."_

* * *

The Galra druids are the guardians of the clocktower, always watching, always waiting. They would watch the tinkerers with dead eyes as they made sure they were fixing everything that needed to be. By having control of the clock, they'd had control of the town as well. It was a surprise that Keith and Shiro hadn't been accosted on the way up to the door by them, but they're here now, a small throwing knife shaving a few strands of hair from Keith's head.  
"Keith! Get down!" Shiro darts past him, shoving him to the floor as a crackle of electricity arcs towards them both. The weight is enough to have knocked air out of lungs, Keith's head hitting the floor and momentarily stunning him.  
"Takashi Shirogane, this is the only warning you'll recieve." The shorter of the two, the one who'd seemingly shot lightning from her hands, drones. "Give us the keys, and we'll let you live." Keith is left sitting there while She says this, Shiro laying on the floor in front of him, hands clutching his face where the lightning had cut across the bridge of his nose.  
"You have three days, bring the keys to us or you. will. fall." Both of the druids disappear then, seemingly into thin air

* * *

_"Why don't you just give them the keys?"_  
_"This is bigger than us, we can't let them get to what's inside the clock."_  
_"And it's worth your life?"_  
_"...I think so."_

* * *

The three days came and passed, Shiro and Keith not leaving their small flat for fear of being found. They'd both knew the Galra druids would be after them, had been laying low for the past week, Keith using the supplies they'd already had on hand to bandage the gash across Shiro's face. It was deep, the scabs coming off every time he changed the bandages, but Shiro refused to leave for the clinic for stitches, just in case. He didn't want to be seen, said he had a friend who could smuggle them out of the city and that they'd be close soon. They just had to lay low.  
It hadn't helped though. The Druids were outside the building, interrogating everyone who may have seen them, their distinctive cloaks like a beacon even up from the second floor of their building.  
"Keith, we don't have a lot of time." Shiro's hands shake near violently as he ushers the android to the cabinet in the clock, the original one he'd been found in oh so many years ago.  
"I need you to take this and hide. Stay here until we're alone." Tanned hands are trying to press something into Keith's hands and Shiro's eyes won't meet his until a cold hand cups his cheek, startling the man. Grey slides to meet violet, Keith's face as impassive as ever, even as he smooths a thumb over Shiro's bandages where they've begun to loosen. They must have both blinked, because Shiro was suddenly draped over him, arms wrapped around the automaton's back. He's shaking, trembling, even as Keith's hands awkwardly come up to return the embrace.  
He swears for a moment that he can feel Shiro's warmth, even without a real heart.  
It only lasts a moment though, the brunette pressing a black key into his hands before closing the closet doors. Everything seems muffled back in the dark, even as he hears someone break open their front door, someone yelling, Shiro's voice. He shifts, pressing his eye to the slit in the doors. He watches as Shiro is cut down, watches the people leave, watches the world turn before he finally pushes the doors open and emerges into the dying sunset light.

* * *

_"Why are they putting her in the ground? Didn't you say that humans needed to breathe?"_  
_"Humans all die some day."_  
_"Is dying like winding down? Is that her Clock then?"_  
_"Keith.... I don't want to talk anymore."_

* * *

Keith's shaking as if he could feel the cold, trembling slightly as he shuffles out of the clock, over the scant few feet to where Shiro had fallen, a feeling like drowning welling up in his chest.  
"Shiro? Shiro, they're gone." His voice is small as he shifts out of the cabinet, scooching the scant few feet to where his friend had fallen, paying no mind to the way blood was seeping into the knees of his pants. His hands still tremble as he places his hands on Shiro's back. It's still, too still, and Keith can feel that drowning feeling becoming larger as he reaches out with the dark key Shiro had left with him, tapping it gently to a spot between the taller's shoulder blades, as if the human could be rewound as easily as he could be. He knows that he can't be. The skin beneath the fabric is smooth. There's no imprint of a keyhole, nothing there for him to rewind to make Shiro sit up and smile that gentle smile at him again.  
The reality of it sets in, Keith placing the key in his pocket before leaning over, placing his head against Shiro's back, a silent parody of mourning. There's nothing he can do, Shiro is dead. Keith's hands clench in the human's stained shirt, a shuddering breath ripping through him. He'd been hidden and watched through the closet doors as Shiro was murdered. There's a different feeling welling up, one he knows the name of because it had once been described to him as a flame eating everything.  
**Anger.**  
There's no emotion on his face as Keith sits up, glass eyes taking in the broken body of his friend. The setting sun has turned the whole room orange, on fire as much as the heart Shiro thought Keith had. It also caused a glimmer, violet eyes shifting to the obsidian ring Shiro had always worn. The ring that he'd said was the key to the door in the clock. Almost before he realises it, Keith's hands are steady, pulling the ring from Shiro's limp hand, sliding it on the opposite side from his own ruby, the one he'd always worn.  
He can see the sunset burning away outside as he leaves Shiro's body, snatching up the dagger he'd been found with and setting out at a run.

* * *

_And in my frustration, I decided to make a wish instead._  
_For the whole world to stop_

* * *

The doors creak open to the atrium, the same as before, the glass dome still pristeen, even as the gears are rusting away behind them. The entire clock tower is trying to fall for some reason, some reason that Keith knows but still does not. He doesn't much care either way, the fingers of his right hand clenching tight around the handle of his blade as his left drops the black key without a care. The silver key warms against his chest as he moves closer to the door.  
It has a will, the same as his own.  
The black key opens the clock, but the Silver Key awakens whatever sleeps. That had been Shiro's theory. It's what runs through Keith's mind as he carelessly snaps the cord around his neck, pulling out the silver key from under his shirt. He can hear more druids coming for him, likely their leader coming to deal with him herself. It's too late though, the key turning in the lock and the great doors swinging open.  
Keith's not sure what's inside, a light flaring up from both it and the rings he wears. The clock gives a groan, beginning to deterioate faster, and Keith kneels in front of the door way, clasping his hands together the way he'd seen once at a church.  
_Please, be what Shiro had wanted you to be, be our hope...._  
He stays there, praying with tears dripping down his face until the clock collapses.

* * *

  
_I feel, that on the other side of this vast, eternal sky, we'll meet again_

* * *

* * *

  
Deep blue boots step indelicately on rusted and broken gears, a hum coming from their owner. Dark hands are shoved deep into the man's pockets as he practically dances through the rubble, never looking like its more strenous than a brisk walk. He seems rather bored, even discounting the cleared out town, his friend's contact dead, the rubble that had burned brightly as they had entered the town. It's his eyes that give away that he's not as bored as he seems, sharp blue scanning over the rubble. Searching.  
He lightly steps closer to the center of the wreckage, where the gears are larger, interspersed with large pieces of glass. He almost daintily kicks over a few of the larger pieces before sighing heavily, running a hand through his hair.  
"It should be here...." The man continues toeing over rubble, idly playing with the sapphire ring on his finger. He's nearly ready to give up on the search when there's a glimmer of something red under the rubble, his own ring glowing faintly in response. The smile that grows across his face is both preditory and pleased, like a cat after the kill.  
"Bingo."

* * *

_Tick Tock Tick Tock_  
_Ding Dong Ding dong_

**Author's Note:**

> OPEN ENDED, HAD A FEW MORE IDEAS BUT HEY ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> For those that are confused about whether or not this is legit Sheith or not (especially if you've seen that video) I really like depicting them as a very .... It's not a sexual love, and it's neither romantic nor platonic? I don't quite have the words for it, but it's something warm and pure.  
> Feedback would be lovely


End file.
